Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [36]
“I grew bored with my practice in Paris and wanted a change of scenery. I had visited here before and knew it would be a big break from city life.” To Cheryl, he says, “You’ve definitely got a bacterial infection. I better check you, too,” he tells Bill, and goes into the same diagnostic routine. “I’m not sure you have the bug yet, but I’ll write an antibiotic prescription to cover both of you, just in case.
“Only one pharmacy is open in town at this hour. Do you have a rental car?” Bill tells him we don’t. “In that case, I better give you some samples of the medicine to hold you until Monday. Everything closes on Sunday, the pharmacy open now isn’t within walking distance, and believe it or not, buses stop running in the late afternoon, when taxis tend to disappear, too.” The suggestion of samples pleases us, but not the prognosis on dinner-hour transportation.
“What else have you been taking for the colds?” Bill shows him our decongestant pills and a bottle of Australian cough syrup called Chesty Forte, a name that sounded to us in Sydney like a marketer’s worst nightmare until the doctor suggests we also pick up some Mucomyst, an expectorant powder sold in sachets. For the emergency weekend house call for two patients, lasting a half hour plus travel time, the bill comes to U.S. $80, about the cost at home for a ten-minute office visit on a normal Tuesday to inquire whether a vaguely described miracle drug advertised on TV is “right for you.”
For dinner, we resort to room service. Some people consider this option attractive, but it seldom appeals to us. The food always sits around longer than it should in the delivery process and you usually dine in a setting poorly designed for the enjoyment of eating. The menu in this instance looks bleak as well, featuring dishes in vogue at chain restaurants around the world. Our interest in eating local leads us to order the closest approximations possible to South Pacific specialties—tagliatelle à la carbonara, a hamburger with fries, and a bottle of wine. Much of the chow gets left on the plate, but the wine slowly disappears in full.
The next morning Bill urges Cheryl to take a walk with him. “The exercise will be good for us, and we should see more of our surroundings.” She hugs her pillow in protest, but in the end goes along to check out nearby restaurants, which now sound like our only dinner possibilities. A stroll along the length of Anse Vata, the beach our hotel is on, takes us more than an hour even though it’s only a mile and a half up and back. Since it’s a weekend, lots of local families and couples show up to frolic or unwind in the long but narrow stretch of sand. Across the unhurried street, there’s a scattering of hotels and other businesses as well as lots of open land. New Caledonia doesn’t seem to be rushing into tourism, an impression reinforced during the rest of our week’s stay.
Our only real meal today is Sunday brunch at the Nouvata Park’s poolside restaurant, where we eat breakfast on other mornings. On the way out for our walk, Cheryl makes a reservation for noon and ends up committing a little linguistic faux pas. In her foggy state, she books pour douze instead of à midi and when we arrive at 12:00, the hostess escorts us to a table set for twelve. Figuring out the problem quickly, Cheryl groans out an apology and the hostess cheerfully moves us.
The expansive buffet provides plenty of agreeable food choices. We focus on the seafood starters, including oysters on the half shell, buttery yellowfin tuna sashimi with bronchitis-busting wasabi, and poisson cru (raw fish in coconut milk, lime, and spices), known in Nouméa as “Tahitian salad.” For a main course, with our appetites askew, our selections tend to be side dishes, particularly haricots verts (thin green beans), French potato and vegetable gratins, and American-style deviled eggs. The dessert table offers simple sweets, such as paper-thin fresh pineapple rounds poached lightly in sugar syrup and fruit tarts that come out better than we expect in the tropical humidity.
Satisfyingly